Mondli Makhanya thinks the GNU will survive

ANC sharing power after 30 years of sole leadership is no small feat, top editor says.

If there’s ever been a moment to question the survival of a coalition government, it has to be now, amid this intense political upheaval.

The past month, especially these past two weeks, have been nothing short of hellish for President Cyril Ramaphosa. He’s faced sanctions and censure from US President Donald Trump, all while managing the everyday drama of a government involving nine other political parties.

Ramaphosa delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) as leader of this coalition at a time when many doubted it would last beyond six months—let alone a full eight.

During the debate that followed, you could almost feel the tension in the air. Political parties in the GNU tore into each other and into Ramaphosa, making it seem like the coalition may not hold. It felt a bit like a couples' therapy session, with the ANC asserting it wouldn’t be dictated to by former political foes and the DA and others threatening to reject ANC proposals outright.

Transformation legislation has emerged as the greatest sticking point, and all the noise about the BELA Act, the NHI, and the Expropriation Act come as no surprise.

The heart of the matter lies in how much the government should consider the need for transformation, given our history. While speakers from the DA and FF+ seemed ready to walk away due to these differences, they quickly justified why they’d stay in this marriage of convenience: economic growth and to keep the MK and EFF from gaining power.

And then there was a moment of levity when an ANC MP took a jab at the DA, saying, “before they started enjoying blue lights, they were as treasonous as AfriForum.” In other words, the DA has become a lot more measured now that they’re getting their share of governmental perks.

When Ramaphosa finally responded to the debate, he emphasised that the divergent views within his coalition were just that—divergent views. He made it clear that despite their arguments and disagreements, they all ultimately need each other. Ramaphosa stated: "We will not be diverted from the path we have set out. I would like to repeat, we will also not be bullied by anyone in the country or outside, from our intent to work together."

So, despite the chaos, it looks like the GNU will survive. I reached out to someone with a wealth of political experience—Mondli Makhanya—to get his take on the situation.

He believes the GNU will endure. And I trust his judgment; he’s seen it all. Makhanya has been part of the narrative from the fragile pre-1995 negotiations, through the Mandela years, the GNU, and into the tumultuous transitions of Mbeki and the chaotic Zuma years.

According to Mondli, the fact that South Africa is currently governed by a GNU is quite significant. He believes it sends a message to both the continent and the world:

“There is an African country where a liberation movement does not manipulate, does not steal, and does not reject being rejected by the voters.”

In a refreshing kickoff to our weekly The Debrief Network podcast series, I had the opportunity to chat with Mondli.

He’s confident that this iteration of the GNU will “firmly survive.”

“I think this iteration will survive. I think it's in the interests of everybody. Everybody wants it to work. The ANC needs it to work because the ANC still has a commitment to making South Africa work. I mean, it's not doing a great job of it, but there's a sense that Ramaphosa is not the best leader that the country can have at this point and I mean, he's not the most effective, but he is able to keep us ticking in the correct direction. There are ministers there who can be like in his leadership in cabinet on the ANC side, who actually are doing some quite positive things and that have got the country to where we are in the past eight months or so. And, the DA also wants it to work. The DA has got a taste of national power and it is able to prove that we have the capacity in our ranks to actually run big ministries and achieve successes. And which is why it's so loud in pronouncing successes, no matter how small, whether it's their successes or cumulative successes from the past.”

Makhanya also reflected on a thought I often ponder: What would have happened to South Africa if Ramaphosa hadn't won the ANC leadership in 2017 and if Zuma were still in power?

“That maturity was huge for the ANC to actually say we're at 40% and therefore we cannot,were not able to govern alone and let's accept that the people have rejected us and the ANC said it over and over again.There is a, “however”, though, and my “however” is that, in 2016 when the ANC lost power in the Metros in Gauteng, there was a huge inability to accept that loss of power. And the lords of the ANC at those levels went out of their way to be disruptive of those governments. They tried to mobilize protests against those governments and there were numerous, successive forces, and votes of no confidence [ in those Metros]. They wanted to destabilize the local government that was not in their hands and it happened in other smaller towns as well. So that gave me a worry about “what would happen when the ANC did lose power?,” at a national level. And so here's my, “however”, and my” however”, goes back to December 2017: Had the other ANC, the Zuma side of the ANC, won at Nasrec 2017, and you had people like Ace Magashule and [others] in those roles being in full control of the ANC, going forward from 2017 onwards, then 2019 elections, et cetera,What was going to be the culture of the ANC? And what was going to be the reaction of that ANC in 2024 when the ANC lost?

I mean, it's a philosophical question.So The ANC that was triumphant in 2017, yes It wasn't a full victory for the Ramaphosa side, but at least,it was able to provide direction in a certain way and there was a consolidation of that ANC.”

During our conversation, I asked him about the DA and tested a long-held theory of mine—that the ANC and the DA are more aligned in their vision for the country than many believe. Mondli agreed.

“Yeah. You know,the, in all the calculations and formulations of a possible coalition after, after last year's election, this was the most natural one.Because policy wise,they actually share a lot of common ground. They are centrist in  nature with the two of them. Yes. Ideologically, the ANC may still spew the whole thing of the national Democratic revolution, but if you actually look at the policies that the ANC government has put in place over the past 30 years, those policies are not very far from where the DA is at. And they are not very far from policies that any mainstream liberal/social democratic government anywhere in the world would actually implement. Put aside all the fancy ANC resolutions that come out of ANC conferences as well as the DA's noise,because the DA's problem right now is maybe an existential thing, a fear of losing its core constituency should it be seen to be bowing to the ANC's dictates and it [should] makes noise around things that actually [matter].”

In the full podcast, Mondli and I chatted about his love for Orlando Pirates, how he found his way to journalism and what he thinks is about to happen to the media. He is ranked among the best editors and journalists in South Africa with his career spanning 35 years. At the tail-end of our discussion I asked him two pressing questions which I think you, the reader, may find enlightening.

Qaanitah: What gives you hope?

Mondli: Besides Orlando Pirates and Tottenham Hotspur?I find hope in the fact that the people of South Africa are full of shit. The people of South Africa, regardless of whether they have voted for the ANC in the past however many years, don't take nonsense from the authorities. And the same people who vote for the ANC in local government elections or national elections, will be the very same people who will be out in the streets burning tires and protesting when the ANC councillor or the ANC local government is not meeting their needs. The people of South Africa didn't, when the ANC had a huge majority, and Mbeki was doing the wrong things, the people resisted his policies and actually overturned his policies. When Jacob Zuma was in power, people kind of felt like he was taking us down a very, terrible, rocky and dangerous road, and the people of South Africa said we don't want that so they took to the streets and the ANC itself rejected that version of itself. So, today the people of South Africa are rejecting even the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa. Yes, there are some who have embraced Jacob Zuma, believing that things were better under him and his re-emergence of ethnic clans empowered that, but the people of South Africa said, look, this ANC cannot rule us [and] govern us until Jesus returns. And they've freed themselves of that liberation movement. And that gives me great optimism.

Qaanitah: What makes you stay awake at night?

Mondli: I worry a lot about the fact that we are going in the same direction as European nations around the issue of immigration. I worry that there might be another conflict around that matter. And so xenophobia is taking over. Yeah, and that the leadership of the country is not recognizing that people are not just simply xenophobic, but that they actually feel the pressure kind of like of the preponderance of immigrants in their communities. We who live in the suburbs and are in better neighbourhoods do not feel that pressure immediately. And we are not doing anything as a country at this point to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2008 and what happened in 2015 so there has been repeated returns of that xenophobic concentration, so that for me is the big fear. We don't want that. We are in such a good, positive space in this country . The lights are on most of the time. But the mood in the country is great at the moment. The mood in the country is positive. There's a sense that we are going somewhere good, and you don't want something that can spark and give us the wrong headlines again.

Watch the full chat on our You Tube Channel and let us know what you think. Please don’t forget to subscribe and share the work we do at The Debrief Network. We are eternally grateful!